Wrong Sort of Rain or Soil?

The rain on Monday afternoon was very welcome and it's given us a rest from watering the plot. The rainfall over the last four weeks, added together, is now beginning to look like it might manage to make a full column of blue equivalent to about an average month's rainfall.

Temperature & Rainfall Records 17 July to 16 August 2018

Before the rain arrived on Monday afternoon I'd just managed to sow a crop of green manure then the heavens opened. If there's one thing that's bad for our soil it's heavy rain. It's not just heavy rain though as the same problem occurs using a watering can. Our soil is clayey and, after heavy rain or after it's been given a good watering, it soon starts to form a hard crust on the surface. This is especially so if it gets a bit of warm sunshine to help the baking process.

The surface of the bed, sown with a green manure crop of Buckwheat on Monday afternoon, looked like this on Wednesday afternoon. There were lots of cracks forming in the soil as it started to dry out. If crops are planted in rows then hoeing the soil breaks up the surface and gives crops a chance to germinate. This is why we normally line a shallow trench with compost when we are sowing seeds at the allotment but as green manure crops are generally broadcast when sowing lining a trench with compost or hoeing the soil isn't a workable solution. I decided to break up the surface of the soil with my rake.

The grass paths got a quick strim and I edged around the bed, not that there was much grass to cut, and the bed didn't look too bad. I'll have to wait and see if that Buckwheat germinates.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett